DOC《One Writer's Beginnings》

7 This book was lacking its front cover, the back held on by strips of pasted paper, now turned golden, in several layers, and the pages stained, flecked, and tattered around the edges;

its garish illustrations had come unattached but were preserved, laid in. I had the feeling even in my heedless childhood that this was the only book my father as a little boy had had of his own. He had held onto it, and might have gone to sleep on its coverless face: he had lost his mother when he was seven. My father had never made any mention to his own children of the book, but he had brought it along with him from Ohio to our house and shelved it in our bookcase. 这本书没了封面,封底用几条纸片粘牢,有好几层,如今都泛黄了,书页上污迹斑斑,边角处都破碎了;

书中花哨的插图脱了页,但都保存良好,夹在书里.即使在少不更事的童年,我就觉得那是我父亲小时候拥有的惟一一本书.他一直珍藏着这本书,或许还枕着这本没了封面的书睡觉:他7岁时就没了母亲.我父亲从来没跟自己的孩子提起过这本书,但他从俄亥俄一路把它带到我们的家,把它放进我们的书橱.

8 My mother had brought from West Virginia that set of Dickens: those books looked sad, too ― they had been through fire and water before I was born, she told me, and there they were, lined up ― as I later realized, waiting for me. 母亲则从西弗吉尼亚带来了那套狄更斯:那套书看上去也惨不忍睹―― 她告诉我,我还没出生,这些书就历经水火之灾,可现在它们还是整齐地排列在那儿―― 后来我意识到,是等着我去读.

9 I was presented, from as early as I can remember, with books of my own, which appeared on my birthday and Christmas morning. Indeed, my parents could not give me books enough. They must have sacrificed to give me on my sixth or seventh birthday ― it was after I became a reader for myself-the ten-volume set of Our Wonder World. These were beautifully made, heavy books I would lie down with on the floor in front of the dining room hearth, and more often than the rest volume 5, Every Child'

s Story Book, was under my eyes. There were the fairy tales ― Grimm, Andersen, the English, the French, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves ;

and there was Aesop and Reynard the Fox;

there were the myths and legends, Robin Hood, King Arthur, and St. George and the Dragon, even the history of Joan of Arc;

a whack of Pilgrim'

s Progress and a long piece of Gulliver. They all carried their classic illustrations. I located myself in these pages and could go straight to the stories and pictures I loved;

very often The Yellow Dwarf was first choice, with Walter Crane'

s Yellow Dwarf in full color making his terrifying appearance flanked by turkeys. Now that volume is as worn and backless and hanging apart as my father'

s poor Sanford and Merton. One measure of my love for Our Wonder World was that for a long time I wondered if I would go through fire and water for it as my mother had done for Charles Dickens;

and the only comfort was to think I could ask my mother to do it for me. 从记事起我就收到给自己的书了,那是在生日时,还有圣诞节早晨.我父母真的是送给我再多的书都嫌不够.在我6岁或7岁生日时―― 那是在我自己能读书之后―― 他们送我一套10卷本的《我们的神奇世界》,为此,准是作了不少牺牲.那套书真漂亮,厚厚的,我总是带着它躺在餐厅壁炉前的地板上,读得最多的是第5卷:《儿童故事》.那都是些童话故事―― 格林的、安徒生的、英国童话、法国童话, 阿里巴巴和四十大盗 ;